The Kingdom of Georgia: Notes of travel in a land of women, wine, and songWardrop, John Oliver
History
The Kingdom of Georgia: Notes of travel in a land of women, wine, and song
Wardrop, John Oliver
Georgia (Republic) -- Bibliography; Georgia (Republic) -- Description and travel
Continuing our walk, we emerge from Palace Street into the
wide Golovinskii Prospekt, which takes its name from Golovin,
a former governor of the Caucasus. On the left lies the palace,
a fine modern building in the European style, and on the right is
the Caucasian Museum, in which the student will find geological,
zoological, ethnographical, entomological, botanical, archeological,
and numismatic collections of the highest interest. On the walls of
the staircase are several large pictures, the most interesting of
which are, a portrait of Queen Tamara, copied from the painting at
Gelati, and "The Arrival of the Argonauts in Colchis," the figures
in which are all portraits, the Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich
being represented as Jason. There is also a very large collection
of photographs, comprising all that is worth seeing in the Caucasus
and in Persia. In the same block of buildings is the Public Library,
in which will be found most of the literature relating to the country,
and a fair number of books on general subjects.
The library is at the corner of the Prospekt and Baronovskaya Street,
and turning down the latter, the first turning on the right brings
us to the Post Office, facing which is a girls' grammar school. The
traveller who happens to pass that way when the lessons for the day are
over (and he might do worse if he likes to see pretty young faces),
will be surprised, unless he has been in Russia, to see that all
the children are dressed alike, regardless of age, complexion, and
taste; he will be still more surprised when he hears that if one of
these uniforms is seen out after 5 p.m., the fair wearer is severely
punished, it being the opinion of the Tsar's Minister of Education
that school-girls, and school-boys too, should after that hour be at
home preparing their tasks for next day. The school accommodation is
lamentably inadequate; in the government of Tiflis there are only
about 280 children at school for every 10,000 of the population,
in the government of Kutaïs only 250.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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